Startide Rising u-2

by David Brin

  She didn't mention the other reason for wanting Toshio to stay as long as possible. They both knew that Tom Orley, if he flew the glider home, would return to the island. He ought to have someone waiting for him.

  "Are we really going to abandon Metz and Takkata-Jim?" Suessi looked perplexed.

  "And Charlie Dart, apparently. He stowed away on the longboat. Yes, it's their choice. They hope to make it home after the Galactics blow us to kingdom come. For all I know they may be right. Anyway, the final decision's Hikahi's, when she finally shows up and finds out she's in command."

  Gillian shook her head. "Ifni sure seems to have gone out of her way to throw us curves, hasn't she, Hannes?"

  The elderly engineer smiled. "Luck's always been fickle. That's why she's a lady."

  "Hmmph!" But Gillian didn't have the energy to give him much of a dirty look. A light winked on the console next to the holo display.

  "Here it is, Hannes. The engine room is ready. I've got to go, now. We're getting under way."

  "Good luck, Gillian." Suessi held up an "O" sign, then broke the connection.

  Gillian flicked a switch cutting into the comm line from Streaker to the island. "Sah'ot, this is Gillian. Sorry to break in, but would you please tell the captain we're about to move." It was a courtesy to let Creideiki know. Streaker had been his, once.

  "Yesss, Gillian." There was a series of high, repetitious whistles in very Primal-like Trinary. Much of it crested over the upper range of even Gillian's gene-enhanced hearing.

  "The captain wantss to go outside to watch," Sah'ot said. "He promises not to get in the way."

  Gillian couldn't see any real reason to refuse. "All right. But tell him to check with Wattaceti first, to use a sled, and to be careful! We won't be able to spare anyone to go chasing him if he wanders off!"

  There was another high series of whistles that Gillian could barely follow. Creideiki signaled that he understood.

  "Oh, by the way Sah'ot," Gillian added. "Please ask Toshio to call me as soon as the longboat arrives."

  "Yes!"

  Gillian cut the connection and got up to dress. There were so many things to juggle simultaneously!

  I wonder if I did the right thing, letting Charlie Dart sneak away, she thought. If he or Takkata-Jim behave in a way I don't expect, what'll I do?

  A tiny light shone at the corner of her console. The Niss machine still wanted to talk to her. The light didn't flash urgent. Gillian decided to ignore it as she hurried out to supervise the move.

  66 ::: Akki

  With aching muscles, Akki swam slowly out of the notch in which he had rested until dawn.

  He took several deep breaths and dove, scattering a school of brightly scaled fish-like creatures through shafts of morning light. Without thinking, he speared through the school and snapped up a large fish, relishing its frantic struggle between his jaws. But the metal taste was bitter. He flipped the creature away, spitting.

  Red clouds spread a pink glow across the east as he surfaced again. Hunger growled in his compound stomachs. He wondered if the sound was loud enough to be picked up by his hunter.

  It's unfair. When K'tha-Jon finds me, he, at least, will have something to eat!

  Akki shook himself. What a bizarre thought! "You're falling apart, middie. K'tha-Jon is no cannibal. He's a… a…"

  A what? Akki remembered the final stretch, yesterday at sunset, when he had somehow made it to the chain of metal-mounds just meters ahead of his pursuer. The chase amidst the tiny islands had been a confusion of bubbles and surf and hunting cries. For hours after he had finally found a hiding place, he listened to staccato bursts of sonar that proved K'tha-Jon had not gone far.

  Thought of the bosun sent chills down Akki's spine. What kind of creature was he? It wasn't just the irrationality of this death-chase; there was something else as well, something in the way K'tha-Jon hunted. The giant's sonar sweeps contained something malevolent that made Akki want to curl up in a ball.

  Of course, Stenos gene-grafts might account for some of his size and irritability. But in K'tha-Jon there was more. Something very different must have gone into the bosun's gene splice. Something terrifying. Something Akki, raised on Calafia, had never encountered.

  Akki swam close to the edge of the coral mound and stuck his jaw out beyond the northern verge. There were only the natural sounds of the Kithrup sea.

  He hopped up on his tail and scanned visually. To go west, or north? To Hikahi, or Toshio?

  Better north. This chain of mounds might extend to the one where the encampment lay. It might provide cover.

  He dashed across the quarter-kilometer gap to the next island, then listened quietly. There was no change. Breathing a little more easily, he crossed the next channel, then the next, swimming quick bursts, then listening, then resuming his cautious passage.

  Once he heard a strange, complex chatter to his right. He lay motionless until he realized that it couldn't be K'tha-Jon. He detoured slightly to take a look.

  It was an underwater skirmish line of balloon-like creatures, with distended air bladders and lively blue faces. They carried crude implements and nets filled with thrashing prey. Except for a few holos sent back by Dennie Sudman and Sah'ot, this was Akki's first glimpse of the Kithrup natives, the Kiqui. He watched, fascinated, then swam toward them. He had thought himself still far south of Toshio, but if this group was the same…

  As soon as they caught sight of him the hunters squeaked in panic. Dropping their nets, they scrambled up the vine covered face of a nearby island. Akki realized that he must have encountered a different tribe, one which had never seen dolphins before.

  Still, seeing them was something. He watched the last one climb out of sight. Then he turned northward once more.

  But when he passed the northern shore of the next mound, a sharp beam of sound passed over him.

  Akki quailed. How! Had K'tha-Jon duplicated his logic about an island chain? Or had some demon instinct told him where to hunt his prey?

  The eerie call passed over him once more. It had mutated further during the night into a piercing, falling cry that set Akki shivering.

  The cry pealed again, nearer, and Akki knew he couldn't hide. That cry would seek him out in any cleft or cranny, until the panic took hold. He had to make a break for it, while he still had control over his mind!

  67 ::: Keepiru

  The fight had begun in the predawn darkness.

  A few hours ago Keepiru realized that his pursuer's sled was showing no sign of failing. The engine screamed, but it would not die. Keepiru notched his own upward well beyond the red line, but it was too late. A short time later, he heard the whine of a torpedo homing in on him from behind. He zigged leftward and down, blowing ballast to leave a cloud of noisy bubbles in his wake.

  The torpedo streaked past him and into the gloom beyond. An amplified squawk of disappointment and indignation echoed amongst the rills and seamounts. Keepiru was used to hearing Primal obscenities from his pursuer.

  He had almost reached the line of metal-mounds behind which the two swimming dolphins had disappeared a few hours back. As he had drawn nearer, Keepiru had listened to the distant hunt cries, and been chilled by a gnawing association that he couldn't bring himself yet to believe. It made him dread for Akki.

  Now Keepiru had his own problems. He wished Akki luck holding out until he could get rid of this idiot on his own tail.

  It was growing light overhead. Keepiru dove his sled behind a lumpy ridge, then throttled the engine back and waited.

  Moki cursed as the tiny torpedo failed to detonate.

  # Teeth, teeth are — are -

  Better, better than -

  # Things! #

  He swung his jaw left and right. He had abandoned the sled's sensors, and was controlling the machine purely by habit.

  Where was the smart-aleck! Let him come out and get it over with!

  Moki was tired and cranky and unutterably bored. He had never imagined that
being a Great Bull could be so tedious. Moki wanted the hot, almost orgasmic rage back. He tried to call up the bloodlust again, but kept thinking about killing fish, not dolphins.

  If only he could emulate the savagery he had heard in K'tha-Jon's hunt-cry! Moki no longer hated the frightening bosun. He had begun to think of the giant as a spirit creature of pure and evil nature. He would kill this smart-aleck Tursiops and bring its head to K'tha-Jon as proof of his worthiness as a disciple. Then he, too, would become elemental, a terror that none would ever dare thwart.

  Moki brought the machine about in a circle, keeping close to the seafloor to take advantage of shadows of sound. The Tursiops had turned left at high speed. His turn had to be wider than Moki's, so all Moki had to do was hunt in the correct arc.

  Moki had been on guard duty when this chase began, so his sled had torpedoes. He was sure the smartass didn't have any. He whistled in eager anticipation of an end to the tedious chase.

  A sound! He turned so quickly he banged his snout against the plastic bubble-dome. Moki gunned the sled forward, readying another torpedo. This one would finish his enemy off.

  A sheer drop opened into a broad ocean canyon. Moki took ballast and fell, hugging the wall. He throttled back and stopped.

  Minutes passed as the sound of muffled engines grew louder from his left. The oncoming sled was staying close to the cliff face, at a greater depth.

  Suddenly, it was below him! Moki chose not to fire right away. This was too easy! Let the smart-aleck hear death suddenly fall upon him from behind, too close to evade. Let him writhe in panic before Moki's torpedo tore his body into pieces!

  His sled growled, then dropped in pursuit. His victim could never turn in time! Moki crowed,

  # A herd bull is! -is!

  # A Great Bull… #

  Moki interrupted his chant. Why wasn't the smart-aleck fleeing?

  He had been relying entirely upon sound. Only now did he turn his eye on his intended victim.

  The other sled was empty! It drove along slowly, unpiloted. But then where… ?

  * Hunting ears

  Can make a bull -

  *But eyes

  And brains

  Make spacefen — *

  The voice was above him! Moki cried out, trying to turn the sled and fire a torpedo at the same time. With a despairing wail the engines screamed and then died. His neural link went dead just as he came about into sight of a sleek, gray Tursiops dolphin, two meters above him, white teeth shining in the light from the surface.

  * And fools

  Make only

  Corpses — *

  Moki screamed as the cutting torch on the pilot's harness exploded into laser-blue brilliance.

  68 ::: Tom Orley

  Where did they all come from?

  Tom Orley hid behind a low weed mound and looked about at the various alien parties on the horizon. He counted at least three groups, all converging from different directions on the floating eggshell-shaped wreck.

  About a mile behind him, the volcano still rumbled. He had left the crashed Thennanin scoutship at dawn, leaving a pan of precious fresh water under the dying pilot's mouth, within reach if he should ever awaken.

  He had set out soon after sighting the party of Tandu, testing his newly woven "weed-shoes" on the uneven slimy surface. The splayed, snowshoe-like devices helped him walk cautiously across the slick carpet of vines.

  At first he moved much faster than the others. But soon the Tandu developed a new technique. They stopped floundering in the mire, and came on at a brisk walk. Tom kept low and worried about what would happen if they caught sight of him.

  And now there were other parties as well, one approaching from the southwest and one from the west. He couldn't make them out clearly yet, just dots bobbing slowly and with difficulty on a low, serrated horizon. But where the hell had they all come from

  The Tandu were closest. There were at least eight or nine of them, approaching in a column. Each creature splayed its six spindly legs wide apart to spread its weight. In their arms they cradled long, glistening instruments that could only be weapons. They marched forward rapidly.

  Tom wondered what their new tactic was. Then he noticed that the lead Tandu did not carry a weapon. Instead, it held the leash of a shaggy, shambling creature. The keeper leaned forward over its charge, as if coaxing it to keep at a given task.

  Tom risked raising his head a couple of feet above the mound.

  "Well, I'll be damned."

  The hairy creature was creating land — or at least solidity — in a narrow causeway in front of the party! Just before and on both sides of the trail, there was a faint shimmering where reality seemed to struggle against a noxious intrusion.

  An Episiarch! Momentarily Tom forgot his predicament, grateful for this rare sight.

  As he watched, the causeway failed in one spot. The luminous band around the edges of the trail snapped together with a loud bang. The Tandu warrior standing there flailed and thrashed as it fell into the weeds. By fighting it merely tore the carpet and opened the hole wider until, finally, it sank like a stone into the sea.

  None of the other Tandu seemed to take notice. The two behind the gap leaped across to the temporarily solid "ground" beyond. The party, diminished by one, continued to advance.

  Tom shook his head. He had to reach the wreck first! He couldn't afford to let the Tandu pass him.

  Yet if he did anything, even resumed his own march, they'd certainly spot him. He didn't doubt their efficiency with those weapons they carried. No human warrior ever underestimated the Tandu for long.

  Reluctantly, he knelt and untied the fastenings on his weed-shoes. Discarding them, he crawled carefully to the edge of an open pool.

  He counted slowly, waiting until he could hear the column of Galactics approaching. He rehearsed his moves in his mind.

  Taking several deep breaths, he pulled his diving mask over his face, making certain it was snug and the collecting fins were clear. Then he pulled his needler from its holster, holding it in two hands.

  Tom set his feet on two firm roots and checked his balance. The pool was just in front of him.

  He closed his eyes.

  * Listen

  For the swishing tail

  Of the tiger shark — *

  His empathy sense pinpointed the powerful psi emissions of the mad ET adept, now only some eighty meters away.

  "Gillian…," he sighed. Then, in one sudden fluid motion, he stood up and extended his weapon. His eyes opened and he fired.

  69 ::: Toshio

  Against Toshio's objections, they had used the last of the longboat's energy to lift it to a landing site on top of the island. He had offered to blast a wider opening into the chamber below the metal-mound, but Takkata-Jim had turned his suggestion down cold.

  That meant two hours of backbreaking work, heaping chopped foliage over the small ship to camouflage it. Toshio wasn't sure even that would do any good if the Galactics finished their battle and turned their full attention to the planet's surface.

  Metz and Dart were supposed to help him. Toshio had set them to work cutting brush, but found that he had to tell them to do each and every thing. Dart was sullen and angry at being commanded by a middie he had ordered around only days before. He obviously wanted to get to the supplies he had excitedly dropped by the drill-tree pool before being drafted into the work crew. Metz had been willing enough, but was so anxious to be off talking to Dennie that he was distracted and worse than useless.

  Toshio finally sent them both away and finished the job by himself.

  At last the boat was covered. He slumped to the ground and rested against the bole of an oli-nut tree.

  Damn Takkata-Jim! Toshio and Dennie were supposed to see the encampment secure, report their findings on the Kiqui to Metz, and then climb on their sleds and get out of here! Gillian expected them to set out in a few hours, and yet almost nothing was accomplished!

  To top it all off, Streaker had only
warned him an hour or so in advance that he could probably expect a stowaway. Gillian decided not to have Charlie arrested for violation of orders, even though it appeared he had stolen equipment from at least a dozen labs aboard the ship. Toshio was glad to be spared the added chore. There wasn't much of anything hereabouts to use as a jail, anyway.

  Foliage rustled to Toshio's left. A series of mechanical whirrings accompanied the sound of crushing vegetation. Then four "spiders" pushed through the brush to enter his tiny clearing. A Stenos dolphin lay on the flotation pad of each armored mechanical, controlling the four high-jointed legs with neural-link commands. Toshio stood up as they approached.

  Takkata-Jim passed by, eyeing him coolly, silently. The other three spiders followed him across the clearing and back into the forest. The Stenos piped to each other in gutter-Trinary.

  Toshio stared after them. He discovered that he had been holding his breath.

  "I don't know about Takkata-Jim, but those fen with him are crazier than Atlast pier-nesters," he said to himself, shaking his head. He had met few so-called Stenos on Calafia. Some had displayed quirks, positive and negative, like Sah'ot. But none had ever had the look that the former vice-captain's followers had in their eyes.

  The sound of the procession faded away. Toshio got up to his feet.

  He wondered why Gillian had let Takkata-Jim go at all. Why not just throw him and his cohorts in the brig and have done with it?

  Granted, it was a good idea to leave a party with the longboat, to try to sneak back to Earth if Streaker was lost trying to escape. Gillian probably couldn't spare any of the reliable members of the crew. But…

  He turned toward the village of the Kiqui, thinking as he walked.

  Of course, the longboat was stopped. Theoretically, Takkata-Jim couldn't contact the Galactics even if he wanted to. And Toshio couldn't imagine a reason he'd want to.